Workmen's advocate., 1887-05-21
LAND AND CAPITAL.
A GLANCE AT TAXATION OF
 RENTAL VALUE.
A Social. Democratic Definiti0n-Hen' ry Georges Plan to Abolish Poverty -- COnyertibility and Instability of
 Capital.
BY DR. A pot Al.

The social democratic definition of capital is the following: All the large means of work land and its natural qualities, money and its representa- tive values, buildings, machines, etc. accumulated for the purpose of employing workers at less wages or earnings than the fail produce of their work, constitutes capital. Such employment would be lmpossl- ble without human laws which create a disinherited class, by creating | class of proprietors of the means of work, laws which force the former to sell their only property (worklng force) for a livelihood to the latter at less than its real value. The con- sequence thereof is that the former must continue to turn out poorer, and the latter richer.
 Henry George states that the i'm poverishment of the working classes which accompanies all modern pro- gress, is due to the land laws alone; that all or nearly all the surplus values created by labor and work fall to the lot of the landlords, and that capitalists are taxed by the landlords just as well as wage laborers and workers in general. Of course, if that be true. his remedy against inn poyerishment cannot be ours. We must insist on abolishing private capital altogether by converting all capital beyond the full proceeds of work into common property for the benefit of all. He insists on convert ing only land (and for the present only land values, irrespective of i'm provements) into common property.
 Now, if we can show that our definition of capital is the correct one and his is wrong, our two poll cies must evidently be very different and ours must prevail. And here we exhibit one flaw in his argument:
 Every form of capital Gin our meaning of the word) can easily be converted into any other form. l can sell my land for cash money and can buy with that money other land or real estate. For ready money l can buy shares in mines, railroads, steamships, factories, and found my self factories, mines, and all the other investments as far as my money goes; l can sell these evl- dences of property tor debD at almost any time and have my cash money again with profit or loss, as the case may be. l can invest my capital Tn acquiring public contracts and in hiring wage laborers in order to fulfill these contracts, when get my outlays back and, perhaps, profits besides. Wherever, and so long as this universal exchange of all forms of property is allowed, none of these forms can have an enduring adyant- age over all the others.
 Suppose the ownership of land be for time most profitable, there will be so many buyers of land that it's price will rise to so high figure as  to preclude higher profit or inter- est from the rental value of land. It is true, in that case of rents will be increased; but there IS a limit to that increase, the produce from the land or house rent can at last not any longer pay the rental value-as the case is now in Great Britain, where the landowners are beginning to be impoverished, and forced to reduce rents. In cities like New York, where an enormous immigra- ton seeks dwellings, the house rents have not to any extent been raised the lst of May, because workers would not pay any higher rent but would rather move to Brooklyn or ont to New Jersey.
 Agricultural lands in the West are just now being ''boomed" up to im-